DUNKIRK- Karl Sides (The Flick Fanatic.com)

Rylance and Hardy head up the cast of the new World War II epic, DUNKIRK!

Early in World War II, England sent troops to fight the Germans across the channel in France. The Nazis drove the French and English troops through Belgium to the sea at Dunkirk. They papered the town to let Allies know they were surrounded, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), an English infantry soldier, made his way to the beach dodging bullets on every turn through town to find thousands of soldiers waiting for ships to take them home. England commissioned private boat owner to ferry troops across the channel before they could be picked off like fish in a barrel.

Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and his buddy George (Barry Keoghan) loaded their boat with life jackets and headed out to save as many soldiers as they can. Dawson gets within sight of Dunkirk when they come upon a stranded sailor (Cillian Murphy) sitting on a capsized ship. The sailor loses it when he finds out they are taking him back to Dunkirk, a struggle ensues and George is knocked down into the hold striking his head. Dawson tells him they are going to Dunkirk and pick up survivors.

Tommy finds a French soldier on the beach and they manage to grab a stretcher which allows them to cut to the front of the lines boarding the ship. The Germans would send in bombers each time a ship full of soldiers left Dunkirk killing most of the soldiers. Tommy manage to get off the ship before it sank and ended back on the dock. Tommy and a small group of survivors from the boat made their way to a tug boat that was beach waiting for the tide to come in.

While all this is going on in Dunkirk, Churchill sent a small group of fighter pilots (3) led by Farrier (Tom Hardy) to take out the German bombers. Churchill wasn’t going to send more troops to fight in France since the war was coming to England. Farrier’s wing man Collins (Jack Lowden) is shot down after taking out a German plane and is rescued by Mr. Dawson and his boat.

Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) is going to get his soldiers across the channel and he stays behind on the dock until the last soldier boards a boat. Tommy and his mates make it out to the channel after the tide comes in only to have the Germans take target practice on the boat and sink it as well. The sailors make it out only to find themselves in oil slick water from all the sunken ships One of the epic moments in “Dunkirk” is when a German plane crashed into the sea (after Farrier shot it down) igniting the water and burning survivors alive. Tommy and about 25 other survivors made it to the Dawson boat finally making their way to England.

Dunkirk is visually AMAZING and sure to become a war classic. I can’t think of a bad Christopher Nolan film..maybe Interstellar which was one of his lesser films, but Dunkirk is in the top 5! Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy show why they are superstar actors in this film of relative unknown actors. Branagh is relegated to a large cameo as the Commander on the dock and not able to really shine in the film. One of the coolest things about Dunkirk is that Nolan uses minimal “Green Screen” special effects, filming the actors in the actual planes dogfighting, on the boats and on the beach!

I am Karl, the Flick Fanatic….ordering you to deploy to the closest theater and see “DUNKIRK” on an IMAX screen to immerse yourself in the action that is DUNKIRK!!!